The Gambia president warns against election protest

Yahya Jammeh, president since 1994, confident of winning yet another term in the office after Thursday's polls.

30 Nov 2016 18:17 GMT

The Gambia President Yahya Jammeh, who has been in office for more than two decades, has warned that even peaceful protests will not be permitted after the upcoming election.

On Thursday, more than 880,000 registered voters will head to more than 1,400 polling stations around the country whose population is around 1.9 million.

President Jammeh, 51, who took control of the West African country in 1994, said on Tuesday that his victory in the election is all but assured with divine intervention, and warned the opposition against protesting.

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"Our election system is fraud-proof, rig-proof, you cannot rig our elections," he said. "There is no reason that anybody should demonstrate."

Demonstrations will not be allowed "because those are the loopholes that are used to destabilise African governments", he said.

Voters will use marbles, placing them into green, silver and purple ballot drums, which will be counted on the spot using wooden tablets.

Observers from the European Union and the West African regional bloc ECOWAS are not attending the election but the African Union will send a handful of observers.

Jammeh faces off against Adama Barrow, a former businessman and United Democratic Party leader, who emerged as the candidate for an alliance of eight opposition parties.

Former ruling party deputy Mama Kandeh is running for the Gambia Democratic Congress, the only opposition party not in the coalition.